City College instructor runs for mayor of San Francisco

By Elliot Owen
The Guardsman

After  placing fourth in the 2007 San Francisco mayoral race, City College  music instructor Wilma Pang says she is “sitting pretty” to win this  November with the help of a new voting process called ranked-choice  voting.

“This year it’s a very different ballgame,” she said. “Even the experts cannot predict who is going to be the mayor.”

Also  known as instant-runoff voting, ranked-choice voting allows voters to  pick their top three choices. If no candidate earns the majority of  votes, the last-place candidate is eliminated and all ballots where that  candidate was chosen as second or third, are redistributed until  someone earns the majority.

Ranked-choice voting has never been used in a San Francisco mayoral election before.

Her  position as an Asian-American woman mirrors Oakland Mayor Jean Quan,  who unexpectedly beat Don Perata in 2010 under the new voting system.

“It’s  all about building relationships and grassroots networking,” Quan said  about her victory. “I was able to win in Oakland because I knocked on  doors and asked everyone to take another look at me.”

As  the founder and co-chair of A Better Chinatown Tomorrow, a non-profit  that funds music- and art-related events to promote and honor  Chinatown’s culture, Pang is no stranger to community work and  grassroots organizing.

Howard  Wong, co-chairman of ABCT, thinks Pang’s experience as a teacher and  ethnic community member makes her appealing to voters.

“She doesn’t have as much of a political stake as other candidates, which would allow her to speak more honestly,” Wong said.

Pang’s  first encounter with politics was in 2006 when Chinatown community  members suggested she run for San Francisco School Board. She received  32,235 – 6.9 percent – of all votes. Encouraged by voter support, Pang  ran in the 2007 mayoral election against Gavin Newsom.

“Nobody  dared to run against Newsom,” she said. “It was a surprise because I  actually came in distant second to Newsom in many of the districts  because of the Asian population.”

She won 7,274 votes – 5.07 percent – placing fourth overall.

Since that election, her political platform remains largely unchanged.

“Everyone  is talking about the budget deficit and the government shutdown and  nobody is thinking about women’s issues,” she says. “Women make up over  50 percent of the population and nobody is thinking about childcare or  our voice in city government.”

Another  top concern of Pang’s is job security. She argues that her position as a  woman would enable her to create a more effective dialogue between San  Franciscans and City Hall to discuss jobs within the city.

“[Women] do a better job at negotiating, we [plan ahead] better, we are in a better position to listen,” she said.

Pang  believes teachers and parents are fleeing the city because they can’t  afford housing, and high school graduates are hesitating to pay high  tuition at the community college level.

She  wants to address how rising tuition and housing costs are affecting  public education. “We’re losing kids by the minute,” she said.

In  addition, Pang stresses the need for more affordable city-wide  childcare options for mothers who work and/or attend school – an issue  Pang, a mother herself, knows from experience.

“I went to school after I had three children, childcare really helped me. But its even harder nowadays,” she said.

San  Francisco’s projected budget deficit for the 2011 - 2012 fiscal year is  expected to soar to $306 million. Projections for the following years  are even higher. If elected mayor, Pang intends to take a closer look at  expensive projects that would add to the deficit.

“The  central subway to Chinatown costs $1.58 billion,” she said. “We have to  look at what’s priority and the central subway shouldn’t be a priority.  That money could go somewhere else.”

Pang  has intermittently taught in the City College music department 1976 and  believes that her experience as a musician and educator enables her to  approach issues from a different angle.

“We have to find creative ways to generate money. And I will do that,” she said.

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